V3C47: Development

After checking that the failed talismans were what she wanted, she did not use them immediately, but instead headed out of the building yet again with more requests and tasks for her to complete, which would also be rewarded by even more failed talismans that she hoped to use to break through into a great physique stage while simultaneously forcing her planar energy to undergo a certain degree of refinement and potentially obtain a new stage, although that was far less likely than most other potential benefits.

Since she hadn’t been told exactly how to acquire the specific tasks of the Remnants of Yin, she took advantage of this to momentarily ignore them while learning more about the locals and the Brotherhood of Power as a whole.

The majority of the tasks that she had selected were incredibly easy to complete, so she made sure to finish them quickly, then returned with either a heart or a recognisable token from the individual that was mentioned within the request in order to easily prove her success. She used the latter more than the former due to Luo Lia Kun and the few others that she ended up meeting not being too fond of the constant bloodstains on their floors and carpets, as well as the stench of burnt flesh that would be left behind after they would inevitably tell her to get rid of the still organ, rarely even bothering to use any kind of technique to check their authenticity.

During this time, she did not end up speaking with the three that she now lived with all that much, as most of her time was spent outside of the Brotherhood of Power’s building, but she did give them and their matters some thoughts while she was travelling there and back again with still-beating hearts in hand.

The living plague that she had detected within Zhi Qiu Ya had the form of a large, spherical, plant-like entity with many pointed thorns all around its form.

She had no knowledge of such things until a short time ago, so she didn’t even know whether this was unusual, but she could tell that it was strangely powerful for a small ball that sat within someone and changed them into an animalistic caricature. Although it did not possess a cultivation of its own, as it was smaller than a thumb and possessed no clear traces of thought or reason, it felt as if it could potentially inflict great harm on her if she tried to extract it, not that she knew how it would do this.

Alongside the fact that she had already shown too much of herself to Zhi Qiu Ya during their chat on the twenty-first, she didn’t have any intention of doing anything about this plague yet, so it suited her just fine to wait a little longer and see if any curious developments could occur from her simple advice.

Wei Yi had no intention of causing some kind of miracle just by advising someone to do something that they likely already attempted to do with great regularity, but at times, an obstacle was only there because someone was convinced that it existed. The moment that they were presented with the possibility that it was not there, or that it was far less insurmountable than they initially assumed, it had the tendency to weaken quite significantly, giving the person the opportunity to breach it and achieve whatever it was that they sought.

Whether the obstacle of the wolven mentality occasionally forcing its way into her life could be overcome in a similar manner was not something that she could determine yet, but it never hurt to try.

She did attempt to use the Realm of Potential to combat the living plague, but she wasn’t able to recreate anything that could view the entity within them as a strength, nor was she able to summon an entity that wasn’t some variation of herself, so that plan was about as unsuccessful as any that involved the Realm of Potential being used in an unconventional way.

It would be interesting to learn whether it would develop in a similar manner as the House of Gold, or if it would require some development and personal control over the prison realm due to being bound to it instead. What she was most curious about was the ability that the Great Aberrant had tried to use against her, as she wanted to understand exactly what he did to end his own life that quickly without her realising that it had even happened. It was bound to be something that simply required sufficient power, which it now lacked due to the absence of the azure light, and the only question was whether she could achieve it before reaching the peak.

Whatever the ability that he had used against her, it had been sufficient to instantly kill himself and end his Mirror Plane, so it was bound to have some power if used in the correct manner.

‘That, or he was suicidal, although that does not appear to match his state before he used the Realm of Potential on me,’ she considered at one point, a week after she began taking on and handling missions, when she left the district to finally pursue her breakthrough with a sufficient quantity of talismans.

As with the absorption of planar energy, she couldn’t remain within the district if she wanted to keep any part of her own abilities hidden, so she found an area akin to the one she used previously – reusing the same place twice would be risky, so she didn’t even bother checking it – and sat down in the grass, removing the enormous bag of failed talismans from the House of Gold and placing it down on the ground in front of her.

She released a great quantity of spiritual will and killing intent separately, forming protective arrays with both, as she would be far more vulnerable during this particular attempt than during any of the previous breakthroughs after leaving the Kong Prison Realm.

Destroying her body repeatedly within a short span of time is bound to tire her out temporarily, and fighting at that stage might only permit her to use the strength of the lower third realm at best, which would be nowhere near sufficient if she faced someone that would usually pose any kind of threat to her.

As a result, she prepared ahead of time, setting up all kinds of arrays to obscure herself, to attack possible intruders, to drain their energy and to confuse them into fighting one another instead of her, although not a single one of them would have any effect upon any foes in the fifth realm or above due to her lacking attainment in the matter of arrays, which was based on the limited understanding of one man with a strange technique that could hardly create arrays of the fourth realm and another that hadn’t managed to reach the fourth realm with a variant of that technique, meaning that her overall abilities were somewhat restricted by the lack of appropriate arrays.

Some inscription were also carved into the ground, but she lacked practise and greater experience with them, so she didn’t expect any of them to be able to do much more than hinder some random travellers, possibly attracting more attention than they would ward away.

Due to the nature of the nature of the cultivation method that she had chosen to use, much of her body, and anything on it, was likely to suffer, so she placed everything on her into the House of Gold, where it would have no chance of being affected by the repeated activation of failed talismans, nor would there be anyone that could reasonably steal it from her without being a significant enough threat to make the matter of clothing mostly irrelevant. Then, she took out one of the failed fifth realm talismans and stuck it onto herself, infusing some cosmic energy into it as she did so.

It had been quite a long time since she had first experienced a failed talisman acting upon her flesh, searing, scorching and obliterating it as it travelled towards the dantian for some unknown purpose, but the experience and, more importantly, the pain still resided firmly within her mind.

When it returned, it almost felt as if she had been transported back to that moment, when her journey of twenty-five years began. She knew that it wasn’t the case, as travelling through time was impossible, especially not from a random failed talisman, but the things she saw at that time flooded in, nonetheless. She was shorter, thinner, her skin was lighter, her hair was less vibrant, and her eyes were duller, she was notably more ignorant and naïve, and most importantly, she was weak.

Back then, she couldn’t achieve a single thing that she wished for, and the awakening of the mysterious characters was akin to a glimpse of light within the abyss, a single hint of hope that had allowed her to travel so much further than she would have ever expected, since she hadn’t thought that she would even be able to reach the third realm within her lifespan, and yet here she was, pursuing the fourth realm and the fifth realm of physique cultivation. Due to her getting stuck in the prison realm for quite some time, it took far longer than she would have hoped, but that was still nothing in comparison to what she had been and expected in the past.

Thus, when the pain struck her, she quickly realised that it was not the same as it had been. The pain of the past was no longer the same, even despite the fact that the talismans were far stronger this time.

‘Even back then, I faced this, but I did not fall. I was afraid, but I did not need to be. I should never be.’

All of a sudden, the talisman on her chest burnt up, and the bag before her also lit aflame, an immense quantity of the five elements merging together into a great ball of light that instantly enveloped her, in the moment of which she felt her mind reach her limits, ceasing time in its entirety as darkness overwhelmed her.

The instant that she was able to see her own body, and the fact that it was dressed, she understood that she had either entered an illusion, or the Realm of Potential, since the absolute darkness was rather similar to the one present there.

What wasn’t quite fitting was a book that appeared to casually rest on the air at a slight angle, as if it was on a lectern that she simply couldn’t see. It was a thick and large tome, a title seemingly drawn in pure gold on the front reading, ‘Not all realms are clearly labelled. Not every stage is based purely on strength. Not all paths can be shared unto others, as some exist purely within the depths of one’s own mind.’

She frowned, but reached out to take the book nonetheless, for something this thick had to contain some knowledge of use to her.

Nothing seemed to resist her actions, and so she was able to pick it up and open it. However, after the first page, the entire tome was empty, devoid of useful information for her to take from it, although she did not view that as a failure or a disappointment. Something that she did likely caused this strange change within the Realm of Potential to appear, and so she presumed that she could obtain more if she was able to repeat or continue upon that action.

As for the first page of the book, she couldn’t call it anything other than a confusing mess. Perhaps it was a code, perhaps it was gibberish, but all she knew was that it was written in the letters of the otherworldly language of Antanian and had only a few words that seemed to be… well, words.

‘This isn’t something that I’ll be able to figure in a short amount of time, will I?’

She shut the book, the image of the text already firmly sealed within her mind, and placed it back into the air, finding that it was able to float in the same manner regardless of where she left it, whether it right on the ground or as high above herself as she was able to stretch her arm. Furthermore, after a moment, she figured out that it was possible to recall it to herself no matter where she left it, so she promptly leapt into the air of the abyss and left it in as high a place as possible, mostly to entertain herself.

It was somewhat difficult to find time and space for doing silly things in the real world, so she took the opportunity to do them elsewhere every now and then. She wasn’t a particularly silly person, but she had to balance the constant focus and seriousness in her life with some amusing things.

Then, she shifted her attention to herself, and the fact that her body should, theoretically, be burning up right now due to the sudden activation of all of those talismans in front of her, and she should be able to feel that even while immersed into the Realm of Potential, and yet she could sense nothing of the sort.

From her limited understanding of this otherworldly gift, she could only guess that she had either managed to dull her own pain without meaning to do so, that her body was handling it, somehow, or that she managed to have already processed every single one of the failed talismans in the time between the ignition of the talismans and her entry into the Realm of Potential, which was even less believable. However, there was the coincidence that both occurred at the same time, so she did suspect that one could have either triggered the other, or have cancelled out the other, resulting in her not suffering the full brunt of the talismans.

Still, she wouldn’t know much until she left this space and checked it out on her own, so she did that.

The first thing she saw was that the bag that had contained the talismans was entirely absent, and that there was a large hole in the ground were it had been, with traces of the five elements pooling around it in such dense quantities that they were almost visible.

Her own body, meanwhile, remained unclothed and uncovered, but she could tell with great clarity that it had changed. In addition, her physique energy had also advanced by three stages.

Far more importantly than any of those things, however, was the fact that she felt a number of additional physique abilities awaken within it. They must have been subdued subconsciously by her, which was why she wasn’t immediately met with glowing eyes, flesh or anything of the sort, but now that she was fully aware of her own situation, she went through them one by one.

The first ability that she noticed was the Bright Star physique, which had little more of an effect than causing her eyes to glow with wondrous light, which was emboldened by her combination of yin and yang, alongside the plain effect of slightly enhancing her overall physical state.

After that, she noticed that the energy of the Golden Form had grown, so she activated it at full strength, finding her skin changing into a more powerful, vibrant golden colour, slowly developing into a shade that was akin to the dark gold that made up much of the Ascendant’s Library, and the Augur’s Library before it. In terms of actual physical ability and resistance, the increase wasn’t as significant as obtaining the regular Golden Form, but the Superior Golden Form ability was still very useful against less conventional attacks.

Next on, she summoned the dark veil of the Grim Mortality physique ability and saw that it had grown thicker and denser, clearly progressing into the Pure stage of the physique that effectively doubled the overall power of the physique ability, especially against those that were devoid of hope, which was what the standard stage of the physique was worst at handling.

She noticed that she also obtained Bright Glimmering Heart physique, as her heart was now more powerful and more adept at negating poisons, which she didn’t truly require due to how many other methods of dealing with poisons that she had. It was still beneficial in improving the regular beat and circulation of the heart, but she had not yet faced many situations where she would actually benefit from that particular aspect of the physique ability. Regardless, it was still an incredibly convenient thing to have, and it would make certain activities that limited her ability to breathe far easier due to the greater amount of energy that would be pumping through her veins with every beat.

A little time after that, when she had confirmed exactly how long she was able to avoid breathing, she noticed two new physique abilities that had awakened seemingly at once.

The first was one that she would have appreciated greatly a long, long time ago, as it was the Energy Pylon physique ability that she had failed to acquire when she was searching for physiques that could handle energy and lifeforce within the prison realm. It was still a very useful physique to have, especially if she managed to create a conduit for it within the Kong Prison Realm and permanently provide her spare lifeforce for the people living there, but that would require quite a lot of work to complete.

It was the other physique ability that seemed far more exciting to her, which was called the Soul of Cinder. She had encountered it in the past and must have readily taken it due to it being an absolute physique that promised great potential.

With that physique ability, one was able to take a certain energy from fallen enemies – and allies, although some contribution to their deaths was required from what she knew about the physique – that were called cinders due to looking a little like them, and absorb it to grow one’s own power by a small amount, with this increasing the more powerful a foe was.

If she defeated one of the Greats and took their embers for herself, she might gain an immeasurable degree of might in a very short period of time, especially due to that power growth remaining constant regardless of her realm. Whether she remained within the third realm or advanced to the ninth realm, it would still boost her overall strength by the same percentage, meaning that it was yet another ability that would multiply her overall strength by an extreme extent if she managed to maximise its potential.

There were also rumours of a state that could only be achieved in the proximity of many embers.

Unfortunately, she did not feel the Existence Trace physique ability awaken, although the presence of it within her physique energy had grown by a substantial degree, as that would have boosted her power even further.

She did, however, obtain the Elder Eldritch Hold ability, one stage above the ordinary Eldritch Hold physique. It wasn’t something that she typically used, and so she was not that familiar with how the tentacles it produced usually looked and acted, but when she summoned them this time, they were blacker, thicker, and gained a certain physicality and substance that they lacked previously. A faint scent akin to the one produced by Mo Zhouquan’s corruption hung around them, though it fortunately faded the moment that she dispelled them.

‘Could it be that the corruption is actually some extreme physique, which the Eldritch Hold is connected to in some way? Also, now that it is significantly less unpleasant and overpowering, it could almost be described as… lewd? I can’t say that I appreciate that, although I have managed to make the claws work in my favour, so maybe it isn’t actually so bad…’

That appeared to be it when it came to awakened physique abilities, as well as improved ones, but what struck her as a little odd was that none of the Conqueror’s Eye physiques, as well as neither one of the otherworldly physiques that she had within herself, awakened. The quantity of their energy within her rose quite a lot, but they seemed to remain a step away from fully awakening despite the fact that just a single more particle of physique energy would have been enough.

Such a thing could have obviously been a coincidence, but she had seen enough such occurrences not to assume that this was unlikely to be one.

‘Come to think of it, certain physiques were said to have no advance stages for quite some time, until, suddenly, without any obvious reason for it, their advanced stages were discovered. Is there something about otherworldly physiques that causes them to be separate from the world for some time, until they finally merged with reality in a weaker state and could be developed in the regular manner?’ Wei Yi contemplated, carefully looking over the particles of physique energy within herself as she attempted to find any potential confirmation for her theory but failed to do so.

Seeing the actual workings of the world, the heavens, or some other force would likely require her to reach the seventh realm at the very least, since that was the point at which most cultivators had a chance to create a spatial realm, which would certainly require comprehension of some basic spatial laws even with the assistance of spatial metal, which naturally made the task somewhat easier.

At that point, perhaps she would be able to glimpse some of the secrets of the world, maybe even learn the truth about the heavens and the amount of will that they truly possessed.

Were they a force that tried to protect humanity, or were they a vicious, heartless entity that simply wished to see those beneath it suffer for as long as possible with the lengthy lifespans bestowed to them through planar energy? She didn’t know the answer, nor could she reasonably guess it at the moment, since she had never witnessed a recognisable act of the heavens, but she didn’t have the best opinion of heaven’s will after learning that the Greats supposedly enjoyed its blessings in their actions.

Whether or not that was true, she would avoid expecting anything positive from them until she could somehow conclusively prove whether or not they were truly on the side of the Greats, or, at the very least, whether the heavens actually had any will of their own.

There were quite a few tales in the past about the heavens interfering and acting, and some even said that the Master of Yi City was in some way closely connected to them, but given the fact that he was an otherworldly demon, that sort of thing seemed highly unlikely, and humanity did have the tendency to ascribe certain events to causes far beyond themselves for no good reason. It wasn’t at all unlikely that all of the past tales of heaven’s will were just misunderstandings, tricks or outright lies on the part of the one that first shared the tales of heaven’s will, although if that, one of the most well-known realities of the world, was false, then what were countless other ideas and assumption?

Was there even a limit to anchors that the Greats had broken, or were they just the only ones practising a technique to have more than one?

‘Unlikely, but it is an unfortunate possibility. The moment that I get the opportunity to do so, I must do a lot of searching and investigation into the very nature of the world, planar energy, and all the rest of it. Given the fact that I already understand the connection between planar energy and every other form of so-called supernatural power, this should be a little easier than for most, but even with Yi Shi Ming’s help, I doubt I will get many results until a long, long time after initiating this project…’

Wei Yi sighed at that, but she understood that some things couldn’t be rushed.

Removing her items from the House of Gold, she got dressed and dispelled the many barriers, finding that, as usual, nobody had stumbled into them, and there were none that were interested enough in her activities to stride into the arrays knowingly.

This was for the better, so she cleaned up the terrain a little bit and began the journey back to the Luo District, when she caught sight of someone using her spiritual perception.

It looked to be a mostly ordinary woman in the third realm, at the very first stage of her cultivation, who was striding through the woods in a slightly dazed state. She appeared to only have a single, ordinary anchor and no other outstanding traits, so Wei Yi intended to walk past her and return to the district without incident.

And yet, when she saw the woman with her own eyes, finding her to be a reasonably attractive figure with green eyes and short dark hair with messy bangs that were just a little too long, and tried to walk near her but past her as to not go too far from her initial path, this woman didn’t seem to notice her at all. She walked straight into Wei Yi, and being someone without any attainment in her physical cultivation, the woman was the one to suffer, falling to the ground onto her backside without any grace, confirming that she should have been unlikely to be pretending unless she had no care about her own image or clothing whatsoever.

After all, this woman, whoever she was, wore a dress made from an extremely delicate material, with a low-cut top that showed off much of her ample breasts, that went down to her knees and ended there, achieving a balance that allowed the cloth to be relatively tight while still permitting sufficient movement. The design and material weren’t too uncommon on their own, but one rarely used such a delicate material for the creation of an outfit intended to be used in casual occasions and combat.

“Are you alright?” Wei Yi asked, brushing some of her loose crimson hair behind her ear while she offered her other hand to her.

However, rather than taking her hand, or even standing up on her own, the woman instead drew back, dragging her clothing through the dirt as she looked at her with extreme suspicion, as if she could have been some sort of ancient evil in disguise, aiming to use this innocent action to ruin her life.

Before she needed to question that particular impression, the woman called out with bright red cheeks, “Are you some sort of succubus?”

“… Eh… You are referring to a kind of female demoness, right? I don’t have any connection to them, in blood or in person…” Wei Yi kept her hand reached out, since she couldn’t determine whether this was a brief inquiry of if the woman had grown afraid of her to the point that she’d never touch her, “So, are you going to take my hand, or…”

“I… fine…” the woman took her hand, rising from the ground with a light pull from her, “Thank you…”

“You should pay attention to where you’re going. I’m Wei Yi, by the way.”

“Oh, I’m… eh… Bao… Chang… da? Bao Changda, yes. That’s what I’m called,” the dark-haired woman nodded with faux-confidence.

As their hands were still gripping one another’s, Wei Yi simply tightened her grip and looked directly into her eyes, “You don’t look like you’re from the Bao family. Look, I have enough familiarity with false names and identities, so I will give you a chance to try another one. I will even pretend that I never heard this first attempt, so you don’t need to feel ashamed or anything.”

“No, Bao Changda is definitely my name. I just… forgot, that’s all.”

“You forgot your own name?”

“Yes,” she nodded with absolute certainty.

Since she didn’t want to crush the delicate hand that she was holding, Wei Yi didn’t tighten her grip further at this extremely suspicious response, but she did make sure that the woman wouldn’t be able to run away before deciding to confirm one of her theories about this incredibly strange figure.

It was obvious that the name was fake not just from her actions, but also due to the nature of the Bao family. They were rather reserved with their name, and those with similar sounding family names were often pressured by them to take on another. Out of all of the families, it was easiest to notice one of them in a crowd as they possessed eyes that resembled gemstones, and hair that glistened with all sorts of unnatural colours. The person before her, while hardly unattractive, did not possess those same kinds of features.